


A Good Man

by TolkienGirl



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, Nat just learned to trust again, definitely a friendSHIP, platonic friendship that is so awesome I almost ship them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:53:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6483058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's a good man. She's never liked good men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Man

She's always found him fascinating. A good man. A better human, surely, in his ninety-five years than she's been in her thirty. Then she'd been in twenty-five. Or twenty. Or fifteen.

He's a good man.

She's never liked good men.

For some time, she pretends she doesn't quite like him. It's not that she _doesn't_ like him, of course, it's just that she's too—busy, or aloof, or knowledgeable to have time for him.

That's what she tells herself, until he saves the world by her side, and she can't pretend that she doesn't like him anymore.

It's then that she starts to wonder if he likes _her._

Because he's a good man, and she's anything but good.

She's never trusted good men.

Good men were the first to hurt her, to set her on the path to being who she is. At least, they had seemed good to her then. They had said they were good.

She's left that all behind, and she and Steve save each other's lives more often than not.

She wonders if he trusts _her._

She asks him, at last, and thinks that if he says either _yes_ or _no_ , it will be still be the wrong answer. _Yes_ would be too simplistic. _No_ would be too devastating.

He surprises her by saying _neither_. He says he trusts her _now._

She trusts him, too, even though he's a good man. Not just a man fighting for the right. Not just a hero.

A good man.

It's then that she realizes—she's never known a truly good man.

She does, now.


End file.
